At what point would I be "practicing law" without a license?

[PaulinNY]

My jurisdiction is: NY

Hi, all
I do a little legwork(document-retrieval, public records lookups, ect) for some clients because I live very close to key facilities(County Seat, Central Records, and courthouse, and between having a lot of spare time and a car that gets high MPG, I can do these sort of things efficiently and economically.
I basically just do a lot of running around, picking up and delivering documents - basically just acting as an independant courier. No problem with that, AFAIK.

But here`s where it gets murky: I am thinking about adding a service to
increase both my revenue and my utility, which, in this case, would be offering to file DBAs for people. Now, if I simply hand someone blank Bloomberg forms, have *them* fill out several (with alternate choices of names in the event their first or second choice is not available), and offer, for a fee, to drive out to the (rather inconveniently-located and somewhat remote) County Seat, do a name-search, file his form(s), get certified copies, and return them to my client, would I be putting myself at any kind of a legal risk of being accused of practicing law without a license?

Afterall, I`m not offering any legal advice, and the Bloomberg form for a DBA
is so simple I can`t imagine anyone actually needing any help filling it out.

 

[lwpat]

Giving or selling blank forms is not the practice of law. When you fill them out or offer advice you are crossing the line.

 

[PaulinNY]

(Quote) "Giving or selling blank forms is not the practice of law. When you fill them out or offer advice you are crossing the line."

As far as THAT part goes, I didn`t really see any problem with that either, but what about me doing the name search and actual filing of the client`s document at the County Seat? Am I still good, or am I cruising for trouble?
I would certainly agree with anyone who said that my doing this creates an
"appearance of impropriety" of sorts, and no doubt I`d be stepping on some toes, since there are lawyers who offer basically the same service, and would likely soon be out gunning for me(since I`d be advertising this service), so I
want to be certain I`m not doing anything illegal by doing the actual filing.

As far as my "offering advice", the form itself is so simple a 5th grader could fill it out, so I don`t anticipate being asked to help fill out the form(and certainly wouldn`t, even if asked), but I DO anticipate the need to mention
to the client that they should fill out 3-5 of these forms, each with a different
DBA name, in the event their 1st or 2nd choice of names is already taken.
In this context, would this be considered "offering legal advice"?